Walk into any radio station or recording studio in your city and you are sure to find at least one Electro-Voice RE20 in its studio. This mic first popped up in the 1960s and quickly grew in popularity as a broadcast mic. It delivers a rich sounding vocal with great rejection so that your source really shines. I first grew familiar with the RE20 in the studio. Most engineers will tell you that it can be a great mic for kick drum, bass amps and horns. When I first started working at Harmonie Park Studios in Detroit, I saw the mic make an appearance many times by the head engineer, Jason Keuhn.
Apart from the new black color the RE320 looks nearly identical to EV's legendary RE20. It features a neodymium-based magnet capsule and boasts a 320 low-mass diaphragm designed to provide faster transients, increase response and a “condenser-like” experience. The hum-bucking coil is built to eliminate virtually all noise caused by electro-magnetic field interference for a noiseless signal path. Both the RE20 and the RE320 feature what EV calls “Variable-D Proximity Control Technology.” This minimizes the tonal shifts that occur from the proximity effect. See, the closer you position a regular microphone to a source, the greater the boost in low-frequency response. As the source moves away from the microphone the low-frequency response will diminish. The Variable-D technology was developed to help stabilize this situation. So for a vocalist that likes to “work the mic” by moving closer and farther away, the RE320 should exhibit a more consistent sound throughout the degree of movement.
The dual voice switch is a new feature that really sets the RE320 apart from a standard RE20. By setting the switch to the right the mic exhibits a versatile, well-crafted frequency curve designed for vocals, acoustic and electric instruments. Set the switch to the left and you engage a frequency curved tailored for a great kick drum sound.
My first encounter using the RE320 was on a kick drum at a show in St Antonio, Texas. I positioned the mic just outside of the resonate head of the kick drum, centering the mic in the hole on the head designed for microphone use. The room was a performing arts space with a d&b V Series loudspeaker system. It wasn't a great sounding room, but the system was fine so I found that the sound from the kick was perfectly usable with little EQ needed. It had the bump and definition needed for the show.
The second time that I was able to use the mic on kick was at a show in Austin, Texas at Christian Life Church. It was a smaller room but I found that the sound system was perfect for the room. When I used the RE320 this time, I was much more impressed. The mic had a very natural quality about it and I was able to tell that the frequency curve in this mode was not over hyped like some other kick drums mics can be. I did have to EQ a bit, but nothing drastic and so I found the mic to be perfectly suited on the kick drum as EV had advertised.
Next I took the mic back to my studio in Nashville to run it through a few tests and to hear it alongside a vintage RE20 that a friend of mine owns. I started with setting both mics to the right switch and mic'd up an acoustic guitar, strumming through a simple chord progression with a little bit of picking. After recording both microphones I listened back. The RE20 was a bit more round and had a bit less detail than the RE320. Part of this must be attributed to the fact that this RE20 was an older mic. It still sounded nice and you could even describe it as “warmer,” however, it was a bit lower in gain and had a less articulate sound. My ears were instantly drawn to the sound of the RE320 which just seemed to have a bit more life to it. A few passes of the same exercise with vocals revealed similar results. The RE320 provided more dynamic range and better transient response. The highs were “higher” and the lows were “lower.” I should say that both mics were both perfectly usable. I have used a standard RE20 on stage and in the studio many times with great results. In my testing, however, I found the RE320 got to my desired outcome faster with a natural and open sound.
When time is tight, selecting the right mic really saves you. When you start with the wrong mic it can lead you down a path of over EQ'ing, microphone repositioning and over compressing as you search for the sound you are after. The RE320 really steps into the gap for most situations. I found the Electro-Voice RE320 lives up to its advertised claims, and I am happy to make this my go-to kick drum mic for live and studio applications.
